Transmitting Stations

[Steve_P]

OK, I'll come out of the woodwork. I spent 2 years with the BBC Transmitting Dept. That picture, by the way, was probably taken at Droitwich in the now gone main transmitter hall. The EiC there was a card, who used to walk up and down the transmitter hall and round the station practicing his bagpipes. I once asked him to play 'The Blue Bells of Scotland' and then 'The Sound of Silence'. Luckily he saw the joke...

The transmitters themselves were big but mostly simple in design. Basically a Modulator Unit, which you could have put a great big speaker on the end of, an RF driver unit, an RF power amp, a gigantic modulation transformer which used to act as a speaker, a tank circuit, feeders and a big aerial.

The Short Wave ones, like the Marconi BD272 and the CS8's that were at Skelton B had massive coils that you changed, with big heatproof gloves on.

For TV, we had Travelling Wave Tubes (Known as TWITs) and Klystrons. Now Klystrons had to be tuned carefully, especially the third cavity. Otherwise there would be an almighty bang!

You had to know about 3 Phase Mains, Cooling, Plumbing, Electrics and of course Electronics.

I wish I was old enough to remember when Emley Moor mast fell down in 1969. I was only two...

Cheers,

Steve P.